op
you are correct
bent holter at hegel made a conscious decision to voice the h390 and h590 to be ’richer’ sounding than the lower models, which persist with the well known hegel very clean serene transparent rhythmic sound... hegel makes what i believe to be an excellent commercial judgement that a good many more wealthy buyers may be older and/or have more refined tastes in the hobby, and want a smoother warmer (full fat vs skim milk as john darko the reviewer aptly puts it) sound, as the gear is often paired with very expensive high end speakers that generally provide a little too much treble energy (magico, focal, wilson and so on), esp. paired with digital -- so think of it as hegel giving you a more tubey presentation (albeit with all the benefits of solid state bass control) without the tubes in their upper tier models...
glad you found what you like and it shows what an excellent careful demo provides in terms of certainty and confidence on the part of the buyer - enjoy!
you are correct
bent holter at hegel made a conscious decision to voice the h390 and h590 to be ’richer’ sounding than the lower models, which persist with the well known hegel very clean serene transparent rhythmic sound... hegel makes what i believe to be an excellent commercial judgement that a good many more wealthy buyers may be older and/or have more refined tastes in the hobby, and want a smoother warmer (full fat vs skim milk as john darko the reviewer aptly puts it) sound, as the gear is often paired with very expensive high end speakers that generally provide a little too much treble energy (magico, focal, wilson and so on), esp. paired with digital -- so think of it as hegel giving you a more tubey presentation (albeit with all the benefits of solid state bass control) without the tubes in their upper tier models...
glad you found what you like and it shows what an excellent careful demo provides in terms of certainty and confidence on the part of the buyer - enjoy!